Researching Rupture: Engaged and Ethical Research on Extreme Nature–Society Disruption

Critical disability studies has been accused of preoccupation with cultural, lingual and discursive matters, and in doing so failing to adequately engage with the often-harsh material reality of disability. This has contributed to a circumstance in which disability studies has produced a lack of material focused directly upon economic processes. Concurrently, disabled people have encountered a momentous economic recession that has threatened their basic economic and human rights. This article seeks to address what is evidently a gap in the burgeoning critical disability and disability studies literature. That is, a gap largely uninhabited by attempts to apply a critical disability studies perspective to macro-economic processes. The article focuses predominantly on two facets of critical disability studies as identified by Goodley: the self and other, and intersectionality. The article concludes that critical disability studies has much to offer through the production of new understandings of economic processes.

The complexity of dementia has given rise to critical dementia studies, a field that seeks to ‘think dementia differently’. In this chapter, I contend that to think dementia differently, it is important to engage in radical and disruptive collaborations with critical disability studies and other critical fields, recognise convergences between dementia and other social identities and locations, and co-conspire with feminist, anti-racist, postcolonial, queercrip movements. Despite Alison Kafer’s call for political, relational affinities and flexible alliances between disability and other social justice movements, there has been little to no collusion or coalition-building between critical disability studies and critical dementia studies. I argue that integrating critical disability studies and critical dementia studies is essential and has the radical potential to create crucial coalitions that can change the social, political, and economic landscape for people with dementia and other devalued bodyminds. Building on Julie Avril Minich’s and Sami Schalk and Jina B. Kim’s work framing critical disability studies as a methodology rather than a subject area devoted exclusively to the study of disabled people, I explore the radical potentiality of placing critical disability studies and critical dementia studies in conversation. Specifically, convergences between these critical fields traverse disciplinary boundaries, uncover new critical analyses of dementia, old age, disability, and care, and expand possibilities for radical coalition-building. To illustrate, I consider how critical disability studies theories, perspectives, and frameworks may be applied in new ways to dementia. Specifically, I focus on mental disability, bodymind, debility, and crip-of-colour critique. In doing so, I elucidate how such an intersection furthers our understanding of the lived experiences of people with dementia, illuminates the structural and societal changes needed to work towards the collective liberation, and contributes to the emerging field of critical dementia studies.

This article posits a number of provocations for scholars and researchers engaged with Critical Disability Studies. We summarise some of the analytical twists and turns occurring over the last few years that create a number of questions and concerns. We begin by introducing Critical Disability Studies; describing it as an interdisciplinary field of scholarship building on foundational disability studies theories. Critical Disability Studies scholarship is being produced at an exponential rate and we assert that we need to take pause for thought. We lay out five provocations to encourage reflection and debate: what is the purpose of Critical Disability Studies; how inclusive is Critical Disability Studies; is disability the object or subject of studies; what matters or gets said about disability; and how can we attend to disability and ability? We conclude by making a case for a reflexive and politicised Critical Disability Studies.

This paper forms an intervention into debates about the corporeality of impairment and ‘bodies that matter’ in critical disability studies. Toward informing the epistemology of embodiment present in critical disability studies, it proposes new directions for progression within four set parameters. Firstly, insights from disability might be better re-purposed toward understanding the nature of all human embodiment. Secondly, one must sufficiently address, but not necessarily polarise, materiality and abstraction. Thirdly, within its parent academy, the epistemological approach might adhere to critical disability studies’ conventions, whilst still avoiding present perils and impasses. Fourthly, it is important not to be so exhaustive and conclusive as to eliminate innovation and creative new trajectories. Overall, the sustaining proposition is, that the productive capacity of disability is immense, toward disrupting and re-configuring ableist understandings of the body in the material world. Points of interest Writers from a critical disability studies perspective have a particular way of understanding the role of the body in disability. This article considers this way of understanding the body, and then describes four directions for how this understanding could be further developed. The way that critical disability studies understands the role of the body in disability is called ‘epistemology of embodiment’ in this article. This article concludes by saying that disability is a great starting point for understanding the meaning of the body for all human beings. In this context, the article uses the term ‘dis/ability’ instead of ‘disability’ to highlight how people are disabled by interrelations between ability and disability.

This paper considers the research possibilities afforded by disabled young people as researchers, designers and makers. We centre an interdisciplinary research project that sought to bring together critical disability studies, co-production and makerspace methods when exploring disabled young people’s aspirations in developing new automated technologies. This emerges from makerspace workshops in collaboration with 9 student co-researchers at a send school in the UK. From these workshops, we learnt lessons about the possibilities of starting from assumptions of capacity with disabled young people, promoting the affirmative qualities of making, and the role of interdependencies when researching and making together. Our workshop encounters demonstrate examples of the significant theoretical and methodological possibilities that emerge when bringing together making as a collaborative research practice within critical disability studies. Our workshop examples illuminate the entanglement between makerspace methods, co-production and critical disability studies. These alignments of affirmative methods and theory make for not only an affirmative process of capacity, diversity and difference but a celebration of it. As such, this paper offers a novel contribution in centralising makerspaces within critical disability studies, and the value of disability as the driving force of inquiry within collaborative, creative and maker methods.

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the relevance of theoretical developments from critical disability studies to information practices scholarship, particularly that which is attuned to how systems of power and inequality create barriers to information. More specifically, this paper aims to interrogate the solutionist ethos that underlies the narrow focus on information access within research concerning information practices and marginalization.Design/methodology/approachThe paper follows a critical interpretation synthesis (CIS) review format, which aligns with the overarching interpretivist research objectives. The CIS review method opens up modes of interdisciplinary analysis that question dominant narratives and assumptions within the literature. In the paper, several concepts from critical disability studies are discussed due to their relevance to key concerns of information practices research. These include the political/relational model of disability, bodymind and crip politics. The theoretical framework of political/relational information access outlined in this paper connects and draws comparisons between the above concepts.FindingsThe paper develops the political/relational model of information access, which interrogates dominant narratives that situate information as a resolve for marginalization. Extending insights from critical disability studies and activism, the framework underscores how access to information and information more broadly are sites of collective contestation that are constantly in flux. Political/relational information access situates information and access as political and relational entities through which to collectively refuse the hierarchies of value and normalizing logics attached to them.Originality/valueThe connections between critical disability studies and information practices research have been previously underexplored. The literature review develops the political/relational model of information access, which extends insights from critical disability studies to the growing areas of critical inquiry within information practices scholarship and library and information science research more broadly.

This article takes the theoretical and philosophical lens of critical disability studies to critically reflect on the Health and Care Professions Council Standards of Proficiency for Arts Therapists. The discipline of critical disability studies, evolving from disability studies and the disability rights movement, is initially defined before multiple paradigms of disability are introduced as central tenets of these disciplines. The relationship between critical disability studies and music therapy is explored, with reference to seminal publications and the perceptions of music therapy within them. The Health and Care Professions Council Standards of Proficiency are then taken as a source of reflection to attempt to understand the perpetuation of medicalised perspectives in the profession and the potential friction between critical disability studies and music therapy. A selection of the Standards of Proficiency are analysed according to distinct paradigms of disability. Questions are posed to interrogate and contextualise the standards in relation to critical disability studies philosophy. From this critical reflection, a discussion emerges which reflects on the reach of these professional standards and how they might contribute to a continuing, outdated expert-model of music therapy in the United Kingdom. The article concludes by drawing these threads together in a series of recommendations to educators, practitioners and the wider profession.

This article brings together key texts and theorists from disability studies, which is a growing and vibrant inter/multidisciplinary field. It is an area of inquiry that has been evolving for the past forty years. It is important to note that, as part of the development of disability studies and in reflection of its global nature, there has been discussion and debate around terminology. Different countries, and therefore different researchers, will often use different terms and this is reflected in the sources included. This review includes seven sections, focusing on the most prominent areas of inquiry within the disability studies field: Overview, History and Advocacy, Disability Studies as Academic Inquiry, Critical Disability Studies, Intersectionality, Representation, and Cultural Disability Studies. Disability studies developed as a result of disability activism and advocacy in the 1970s and has subsequently become a fully-fledged area of research and study. Disability studies is not focused on curing disability, rather it examines the social structures that contribute to the marginalization of those with disability. Fundamental to disability studies is its history, which begins in the 1970s in the United States and United Kingdom with the fight for civil rights for those with disabilities. This time period also saw a rejection of the medical model of disability, which positioned disability within the body of the individual, and the rise of a “social model” of disability that emphasizes disability is created by social and environmental factors. The second phase within disability studies was its inclusion in institutions of learning as a field of academic inquiry. This led to a third phase, critical disability studies, which reconsiders what disability is and what it means for individuals and for society more broadly. Critical disability studies acknowledges divergences in approaches and theories and questions the social model of disability. Critical disability studies also advocates for a conscious inclusion of the intersections that have existed within the field since its inception, such as gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. Connected to intersectionality is representation, which is another growing area of disability studies. Representation looks at representation of, as well as representation by, persons with disability in a range of mediums including film, television, literature, and stage. Some theorists argue that the field has now moved beyond critical disability studies and advocate for a cultural disability studies approach, which acknowledges the complex nature of disability and considers the cultural practices and beliefs related to disability. Each of these themes traces the growing field of disability studies as it has developed and become more complex, highlighting the deepening understanding of difference and what it means to be human.

Within veterinary ethics and practice around companion animal end-of-life and euthanasia, the political and cultural dimensions of death and dying are rarely addressed. This reduces the ability to engage with questions like: what future potential goods (positive affective states, meaning) could an animal experience by continuing to live; what constitutes a life worth living; and how can we make this decision for another being? These are questions that have been subject to extensive dialogue within Critical Disability Studies. The aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of how core considerations from Critical Disability Studies could be useful in veterinary ethics when considering companion animal end of life and euthanasia. First, critiques of the dis/ability binary and associated hierarchies raise questions about how animal disability and illness are understood, and around challenging questions like psychological illness and behavioural euthanasia. Second, nuanced engagements with questions of a life worth living and Quality of Life emphasise the importance of individual animal experiences, personality, and the foregrounding of 'what is important for the animal'. Third, dialogues around choice and agency critique the tendency to focus on owner choice, rather asking what opportunities there are to listen to the preferences of animals themselves. Finally, engaging with care and power highlights the ambivalent nature of caregiving, of euthanasia as a practice of care, and the power intrinsic to making End of Life decisions on behalf of another. Overall, perspectives from Critical Disability Studies allow us to engage with challenging questions of veterinary ethics and end-of-life care in companion animal practice with more nuance and complexity.

Through the lens of critical disability studies, this article analyzes the discourse surrounding routine neonatal male circumcision in Canadian and Western contexts. The function of the foreskin is explored, and the functional limitation inflicted by the act of routine neonatal male circumcision is presented. In a critical disability studies framework, it is argued that the act of amputating healthy erogenous tissue and the consequences of that amputation cause disability, particularly from a counter-hegemonic lens. Various principles of critical disability studies are employed, including: recognizing the expertise of disabled people in their own lives; centering the lived experiences of people; factoring in social and political definitions; accounting for the intersections of gender and sexuality; addressing accommodation and equity; and the overall reinterpretation of disability. Through the lens of critical disability studies, considerations include: the intactivist movement; social justice initiatives; foreskin restoration movements; structural violence; the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act; and support for men who live with an amputation due to forced genital cutting. Keywords: male, circumcision, critical disability studies

Global guesstimates suggest that around 80 per cent of the planet’s 650 million disabled people are located in the so-called Global South, the bulk in rural areas and most suffer the brunt of disproportionate poverty. In spite of this, disability studies remains profoundly WENA (West European and North American) and focused exclusively on urban post-industrialist settings. In spite of this, its theories and tenets such as the social model of disability are consistently exported to a Global South it never intended to address. As the imperialistic trail of Western knowledge and practices legitimises this process, debates are perpetually re/neocolonised, discourses are simplified and generalised, contexts (places and spaces), cultures and histories (temporalities) homogenised, and many critical issues ignored or intentionally resisted. They become ontological invisibility. Disability studies becomes complicit in the neocolonising of the Southern space. This chapter is inspired by elements of post-structuralism and Latin American writings on coloniality/neocolonialism (Coronil, 2000, 2008; Quijano, 2008) and seeks to explore and critically discuss some of the gaps that emerge when attempting to articulate a critical debate around disability in the majority world. The chapter takes on the call by some to decolonise methodologies (Tuhiwai Smith, 2002), as well as thought and debate (Fanon, 1967; Meekosha, 2008; Goodley, 2010). It concludes that a critical disability studies that is open, situated around prioritising, engaging with and learning about the Global South in its full complexity is necessary, a project I term Critical Global Disability Studies.

This paper offers an insight into how and what about disability (studies) can be taught to clinical psychologists studying for their doctorate. Combining reflective and academic writing, we discuss our pedagogical approaches to teaching Critical Disability Studies, as well as the content of our sessions. In opposition to the biomedical, deficit-orientated understanding(s) of disability, which often permeates psychology curricula, we advocate for Critical Disability Studies (CDS) to be(come) an integral part of how disability is taught, as it enables a more critical and politicised, intersectional-understanding of disability. Such a shift in how disability is viewed can lead to a more humanising professional practice.

This article aims to open a discussion on better ethical assurance for non-university research actors drawing on democratic norms. It derives from the author’s experience of a gap in ethical assurance for social science and humanities (SSH) research that takes place outside academia, for example within international organisations, public bodies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and by private entities. Many of these actors commission, conduct or sub-contract research activities involving human participants on a regular basis, an activity that often increases during times of crisis where researchers in both the public and private sphere scramble to generate the new knowledge necessary to respond and prevent further harms. The ethical assurance frameworks for such research, while growing, remain limited. Discussion of research conducted by actors outside of university settings and their ethical assurance frameworks are both subjects under-interrogated within the literature. This paper seeks to open that discussion by presenting this broad non-university research context through the frame of research in crisis settings, where the ethical requirements of ‘do no harm’ and the ‘dual imperative’ possess an even heavier significance in research ethics. Furthermore, the global and diverse nature of crisis settings often gives rise to conversations concerning the positioning of the research actor and the need to empower the research participant. This paper presents an early vision of the non-university research actor and ethical assurance process based on the democratic norms of equality and inclusivity.

This paper invites educators to engage in Mad dreaming with SF. Mad dreaming with SF is conceptualized at the intersections of Mad Studies, Critical Disability Studies (CDS), decolonial studies and posthumanism. This interdisciplinary approach is intended to offer an urgent provocation to educators to stop reproducing western colonialism in its current neoliberal iteration. Through a contestation of the western colonial notion that progress and developmentalism are leading to better futures, this paper is a plea to educators to create spaces for the reimagining of definitively Mad futures. Mad dreaming with SF considers what it might mean to refuse to repeat past and present abuses of power. In order to stop the progress and further development of the neoliberal order of things, I propose the need for the kind of Mad Dreaming with SF that will remain haunted by the perils of perpetuating injustices between each other. Mad Dreaming with SF also desires the enactment of futures that have yet to be imagined. This paper ultimately seeks to enact mad methods wherein teachers and students play in and with Mad dreaming as a vital strategy of human survival that embraces the potentialities in anti-colonial, anti-ableist, and anti-sanist futures.

The field of Critical Disability Studies (CDS) includes a diverse range of methodologies for the ethical re-evaluation of literary texts. CDS has a growing relationship with Romanticism, addressing themes such as sublime aesthetics and poetic symbolism. A major function of CDS is the re-reading of texts in terms authors’ lived experience of disability, and the social environments in which they produced. To that extent, CDS is a continuation of the process of re-historicizing Romantic literature. Complementary to the historicizing function, a range of more conceptual theories continues to impact on Romantic studies, opening up new possibilities for reading and scholarship. This article attempts to provide a critical overview of this ongoing work, and a sense of its diverse and at times contradictory nature. Concepts and theories for discussion include disability aesthetics, deformity, metaphor, and the Romantic fragment. The article includes a close analysis of Byron’s poem “Prometheus”, which connects revolutionary myth with ideas of pain and silence, demonstrating the fundamental contribution made by ideas of disability to literary Romanticism. CDS can help to disrupt the canonical and institutional nature of Romanticism, and to include dissident voices—not only the witness of the non-normatively embodied, but of difference in general.